Flaccid food products, such as fish filets and chicken tenders, and delicate, frangible products, like croquettes, are typically breaded and fried for consumption by restaurant customers. These products, together with other foods that are fried, are frequently produced and consumed in volumes sufficient to justify in-restaurant use of machinery that batters and then coats the products with particulate breading material.
The prior art machinery used for breading food products functioned for both relatively rigid products, like bone-in chicken parts, onion rings, etc., and the noted flaccid products. The machines in question utilized open mesh wire conveyor belts that carried the products through the machinery. The machines often comprised a battering unit, where the products were coated with a fluent batter, and a breading unit where breading was applied to the product and adhered to the batter coating. The battering units had a conveyor belt that delivered battered products to a breading unit conveyor belt before the breading was applied.
Machines have been constructed with the battering unit supported vertically above the breading unit. The battering and breading units were oriented so that a single attendant, at one end of the machine, could load items into the battering unit and receive the items, breaded, from the breading unit. This was a particularly effective way to bread food products to order, as the attendant could load the number of items constituting an order into the machine, receive the breaded items and fry them at once. The superposed battering and breading units also provided a small "footprint" that minimized the space occupied by the machine.
These machines were not without drawbacks. The unit conveyors were spaced vertically apart and configured so that battered items dropped from one conveyor to the other. Flaccid and frangible products, like fish filets, chicken tenders, and croquettes, presented problems. Flaccid products were often folded or heaped on the breading unit conveyor when breading was applied. Consequently, some flaccid products were only partially breaded while others were unevenly coated. Frangible products were sometimes broken up when dropped from one conveyor to the other. Relatively rigid products were more effectively handled although they sometimes landed roughly on the breading unit conveyor material and the impacts sometimes created clouds of breading and spillage.
The battering and breading machine that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,356 overcame the handling problems associated with flaccid and frangible food items, as well as rough handling of dimensionally stable items, by locating the battering unit laterally spaced from and in-line with the breading unit. The battering unit conveyor was positionable adjacent the breading unit conveyor so that flaccid and frangible items were handed-off to the breading conveyor without folding, heaping, or breaking up. The machine had a relatively large foot print and required the attendant to load items into the end of the machine that was opposite from the discharge end. This required sufficient floor space for the attendant to move around the machine from one end to the other.
Another problem with the prior art breading units was that after breading material was applied, the food products often carried breading material that was either loose, or only weakly adhered to the product. Food products carrying such breading were delivered from the breading units ans placed in fryers where the breading was dislodged. This material was sometimes later be adhered to food products during frying, creating unappealing appearance and flavor.
Unloading breading material from prior art breading machines has sometimes been difficult. Some prior art machines were constructed in such a way that the entire breading reservoir had to be physically removed from the machine in order to dump the breading material. Some reservoirs were equipped with trap doors that allowed breading material to fall from the reservoir while others utilized panels that were moved into position under conveyors so that the breading could be conveyed along and discharged from the machines at a discharge location. The prior art machines were constructed for discharging breading material from machines that had particular architectures. For example, where the machines had a distinct reservoir that was located at an elevated location trap doors enabled dumped breading to be collected under the reservoir. Where the under-conveyor panels were used, the machines had a discharge location for food products that also served as the discharge location for the breading material.
The present invention provides a new and improved food product breading machine that reliably conveys flaccid and frangible food products to a breading station without folding, heaping or breakage, handles breaded food products in such a way that loose or weakly adhered breading is removed before the products are delivered from the machine, and also unloads breading material from the machine breading reservoir at a location spaced from the bottom of the reservoir and remote from the food product discharge location.